Transients were seen by the populace and the local government as another inconvenient byproduct of warm winter weather. They’re like snowbirds and college students but without money, but our capitalistic society has no use for people without money.

By labeling the homeless “transients”, Tucson was able to turn a blind eye toward them. Over the years, Tucson tried to make itself more inhospitable by passing laws prohibiting aggressive panhandling and ending street corner sales of newspapers. Really… we just wanted them to go away, so we wouldn’t have to feel guilty about inaction. With the rise of Safe Park homeless encampment downtown, I fear another round of over-policing is coming, since the city is appealing a court order protecting Safe Park as a free speech protest.

Occupy Tucson and the Homeless

After years of city indifference and feeble attempts to regulate the homeless out of existence, Occupy Tucson brought the Tucson homeless back into public view by welcoming them into their encampment and helping them. I see the Safe Park protest as an outgrowth of that action.

After the 2008-09 Wall Street crash, homelessness, poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity ballooned nationwide. Millions of people lost their homes due to underwater mortgages, job loss, or medical bankruptcy. The government ignored the financial problems on Main Street, ignored the financial problems of the states, and bailed out Wall Street. Remember Occupy? Banks got bailed out. We got sold out.

Occupy encampment in Armory Park– before it was cleared out in the middle of the night by Tucson Police.

Occupy Tucson was one of the longest running Occupy encampments in the US. It was also one of the most harassed by police. Under former Mayor Bob Walkup and former City Manager and Cop Richard Miranda, Occupiers were rousted out of their tents at night and ticketed by police. At one point 700 citations had been served to Tucson Occupiers– second only to New York City.

An unintended consequence of Occupiers camping in Armory Park, Veinte de Agosto Park, DeAnza Park, and eventually on the sidewalks was an increased awareness of the homeless. Although it wasn’t always smooth sailing, Occupiers welcomed the homeless to their camp and their communal dinners, and activists like former Mayoral Candidate and Tucson Occupier Mary DeCamp advocated for people living on the street and wrote a series of “Notes from the Occupation” which discussed Occupy Tucson, the homeless, and police oppression of Occupy. This excerpt from an article I wrote on the second anniversary of Occupy Tucson includes some of DeCamp’s insights on Occupy and the homeless:

Locally, Occupy Tucson opened our eyes not only to the political messages about wealth disparity and inequality but also to basic poverty-related issues– particularly homelessness, mental health care, and hunger. The homeless have been living in Tucson parks and on our streets for decades. When Occupiers moved in, they became a lifeline for many street people– providing free food and informal crisis management.

Occupying these past 2 weeks has really opened my eyes to the numbers of severely mentally ill and homeless people shambling around our streets. Our presence in the park protects them from the ravages of “bum fights”, prostitution, and other indignities they suffer just to scrap together the money they need to survive. We feed and shelter them, just like Jesus would have done. Think of how much money is spent on arresting, prosecuting, defending, incarcerating, and probating Tucson’s most at-risk population. Or the costs of emergency room services that the City has to pick up. We provide preventative measures that SPARE THOSE COSTS. We, the people, are providing services that Big Government and Big Business can’t seem to deliver effectively.

During her 2011 mayoral race against current Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, DeCamp advocated for expanding Tucson’s community centers to make them true community centers with expanded hours into the evening, in-house health clinics with screenings and basic services, tutoring, job placement, English classes, community-based police stations, and a variety of services to help Tucson residents (regardless of housing status). These visionary ideas are ever more valid today.

Today’s War on the Homeless

“Dream pods” are rolling boxes where Tucson’s homeless sleep.

The Safe Park protest has been expanding downtown since the 9th District Court ruled that it was a protest– not just a bunch of people sleeping on the street. The Arizona Daily Star (AKA Tucson.com) has been carrying water for the Mayor and Council, City Attorney Mike Rankin and the monied class of Tucson, who want to pretend that poverty and homelessness don’t happen here– especially not in an election year.

After several months of ignoring Safe Park, the Star began running multiple stories about it, including front page stories like the one focusing on the “dream pods” (large coffin-like wooden boxes where homeless people took shelter during our cold, wet winter). They also brought up concerns about poo (people and dog poo) downtown, since we have no public restrooms, and concerns about a Pima County Supervisor’s dog being attacked by Safe Park dogs. Most recently, instead of just putting down the homeless and treating them like vermin to be eradicated, the Star decided to make fun of their plight. Using a play on words, they linked the City Council’s multi-million-dollar corporate giveaway to Home Goods to “Homeless Goods”, a fictional factory making dream pods. (Keep it classy.)

In an article about the City’s 9th Circuit Appeal, City Councilwoman Regina Romero says the city is trying to help the homeless by giving $1.5 million to nonprofits who help the homeless. Poverty pimps. Indeed, if you Google “homeless Tucson”, a list of services and shelters for the homeless pops up– Gospel Rescue Mission, Primavera Foundation, Salvation Army, and others.

Stop Bashing, Start Helping

Homeless in the shadows of corporate America

If there are services available, why are people living on the street? Obviously, there is a disconnect in the system. Should the city be funneling its resources through nonprofits? What percentage of our tax dollars goes to administer these nonprofits? How many shelters or soup kitchens require people to declare their love for Jesus before they are served?

Where are the University of Arizona Colleges of Public Health, Nursing, and Medicine in this? They have a cadre of do-gooder grad students who could help figure this out and come up with creative solutions. Public health grad students could interview the homeless, determine how they got where they are today, and what they need to dig themselves out of the financial, physical, medical, mental, or addiction challenges they face. As far as I know, we have no data on the severity of the homeless problem in our city or who the homeless are. The Star often quotes one woman living under a bridge as the local spokesperson for the homeless, but one person is not a statistically valid sample. (BTW, she says Safe Park doesn’t speak for her.)

Who are Tucson’s homeless? How old are they? How many are women, children, or families? Why are they living on the streets? Are they protesting? Are they addicted? Are they broke? Did they lose their home to foreclosure? Are they escaping violence and abuse at home? Do they need mental health or medical services? Do they need someone to connect them to services, like AHCCCS (Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, Medicaid)? Or do they just need a clean, safe place to stay until they get back on their feet?

Besides the people on the streets, what about the home insecure among us? The people in rattletrap, unsafe trailers. The people living in sheds without running water. The people living in tents or vehicles in friends’ backyards?

Compassion Is Cheaper than Greed

The multiple Star articles focus on how and why Tucson should get rid of Safe Park– not on any real solutions to end homelessness. While we offer tax incentives to businesses and continue to ignore our vulnerable populations, other cities are studying their homeless populations and coming up with solutions.

Multiple studies have shown that housing the homeless is cheaper than harassing, arresting, ticketing, and jailing them, in addition to taking them to emergency rooms when someone is stabbed or shot or has a heart attack, a seizure– or a child— on the sidewalk.

Here are several articles from around the country about solving homelessness.

And then… there’s the whole tiny house movement. If you Google “tiny house homeless”, you’ll see a number of tiny house projects to house the homeless. Think: large dream pod with a bathroom. Although some homeless advocates see tiny houses as a solution, I think it is another way to funnel money to poverty pimps who want to build a demonstration project. Also, you’d need 1000s of tiny houses, and it would not be an efficient use of land resources.

Instead of hundreds of tiny houses, why not look at the 1000s of empty foreclosed homes or old motels? Why not help people before they are foreclosed upon?

At any rate, there are lots of ideas and potential solutions out there. It’s time for Tucson to take its head out of the sand.

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3 comments on “Tucson: It’s Time to Stop Ignoring the Homeless & Help Them (video)”

Many thanks, Pam, for summing up the situation so well and calling for more action.

I left the occupation in the public parks for the safety and security of a private room in a benefactor’s garage. Bartering is an economic system we all inherently understand. I exchange my services as a dog walker and a general “house elf” for room and board.

It’s definitely not the status-quo American life I expected to live when I was growing up in a small town half a century ago. But community life has changed radically, and, as a result, I’ve become more radicalized.

The Horatio Alger myth of working hard, “keeping your nose clean”, and being a responsible citizen to secure a comfortable life no longer holds. People work 2 or 3 part-time jobs and still cannot meet basic leaving expenses.

I was a model citizen up until 2011; I was working, getting an education, paying taxes, volunteering in my community, voting. But I became a victim of the foreclosure crisis following a 2009 bicycle spill on the trolley tracks that resulted in unbudgeted medical expenses. I tried for two years to work within the system to save my home.

Despite participating in two HUD-certified counseling programs, filling out reams of paperwork, and arguing before the judge that the mortgage had changed hands so often that nobody could produce the original deed to the property, my modest little house was taken from me (despite putting 30% down payment).

You are so right about “Banks got bailed out. We got sold out.”

With economic and political systems that are as broken, fixed and rigged as ours have become, I can no longer stand to be complicit. I feel I must be a friction in the machine to change how the system operates.

The suits can keep their j-o-b-s with the golden handcuffs fastened to the treadmill, I’ve got more important work to occupy my time and talent now. Our social fabric is shredding, so I’ll spend my efforts in service to people and to planet instead of to profit.

Progressive Action

Governor Ducey had proposed increasing prison beds and funding, while cutting education. Protesters took issue with that short-sighted idea.

We often hear that corporations need migrant workers because Americans “don’t want to do these jobs.” When I hear this statement, I picture farm workers picking vegetables. Recently, I toured two dairies and an animal feed packing plant in Pinal County. The photo above from the Zinke Dairy shows a giant cow milking carousel. Nine migrant workers milk 4000 cows three times a day at this dairy. Legislators watched the two men pictured here– working at a brisk pace– bend over and pick up, lift, and attach large electronic suction cups to the cows as they ride the carousel around the giant facility. This level of automation is the wave of the future for industrial jobs.

Safe Park, downtown Tucson

Desconocido (unknown)

John Nichols of ‘The Nation’ addressed progressives and unionists at a Tucson event.

Despite the sweltering heat, Jim and I had a great time at the Labor Day Picnic. We collected a lot of Clean Elections $5 donations and signatures. Here I am with LD9 chair Michael Dues.

Protesting migrant deaths in the Arizona desert.

We are the 99%.

PDA Tucson Coordinator Jim Hannley speaks against both the crowd management ordinance and the urban camping ban at the City Council meeting.

I have a background in research. Help me build Tucson’s tech industry and grow our own local businesses.

Rep. Sally Ann Gonzales and I were interviewed by NBC at the Phoenix rally.

Jim and I were part of a contingent of Unitarian Universalists who came up from Tucson. Here I am with Rev. Ron Phares from the Mountain Vista UU Church in my district. (Jim is photobombing us.)

Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley with members of the Tucson Chapter of NOW on opening day at the Arizona Legislature, 2018.

A homeless man sleeps in the shadow of corporate America.

In the 1980s, the Tucson Weekly called Tucson the “Baked Apple”.

The Living Economy event was very informative; we had a great time hob-nobbing. My husband Jim is a small business owner and a member of Local First Arizona. I have owned two small businesses in the past– Powers/Queen Associates and Wind Dancer Design. We support Local First Arizona and buying/investing locally. We believe that supporting local small businesses with low-interest loans through a public/private partnership between a public bank and community banks and credit unions is the sustainable route to improving our local economy. Trickle down economics doesn’t work; it’s time for new ideas.

Jobs with Justice marching with Occupy Tucson in support of postal workers.

Occupy encampment in Armory Park– before it was cleared out in the middle of the night by Tucson Police.

There have been many lively debates in the Arizona House in 2018. This team of House Democrats fought for consumer protections and fought against risky financial deals in a “regulatory sandbox.” (Pictured are Reps. Mitzi Epstein, Kelli Butler, Athena Salman, Pamela Powers Hannley, Ken Clark and Isela Blanc.)

It was truly a honor to meet Nevada State Senator Patricia Spearman (center) in October and to confer with her regarding our efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in Arizona. Spearman led the successful Nevada efforts to ratify the ERA in 2017. Here we are with activist and NOW leader Dainne Post after the ERA workshop at the We the People Conference in Phoenix. There are a lot of Arizona women who are ready to make history in 2018. Watch my blog here and my Facebook page here for ERA updates.

Visiting with PALF chairman Fred Yamashita at the 2016 Labor Day Picnic.

Ironically, I posted this blog post on the anniversary of this election on June 19. 1970ish.

A giant poet’s head made up of stainless steel letters marks the stop near the UA Poetry Center.

Congressman Ron Barber and Pamela Powers Hannley at Cyclovia

This is a broken sink in the Ladies’ Room at the Arizona State Building in downtown Tucson. One of the elevators also was broken. It’s time to fix Arizona government.

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About

I stand on the side of Love. I believe in kindness to all creatures on Earth and the inherent self-worth of all individuals--not just people who agree with me or look like me.

Widespread economic and social injustice prompted me to become a candidate for the Arizona House, representing Legislative District 9 in the 2016 election. My platform focuses on economic reforms to grow Arizona's economy, establish a state-based public bank, fix our infrastructure, fully fund public education, growlocal small businesses and community banks, and put people back to work at good-paying jobs. I also stand for equal rights, choice, and paycheck fairness for women. I am running as a progressive and running clean.

My day job is managing editor for the American Journal of Medicine, an academic medicine journal with a worldwide circulation. In addition, my husband and I co-direct Arizonans for a New Economy, Arizona's public banking initiative. I am a member of the national board of the Public Banking Institute, and I am co-chair of the Arizona Democratic Progressive Caucus, the largest caucus of the Arizona Democratic Party.

I am a published author, photographer, videographer, clay artist, mother, nana, and wife. I have a bachelor's degree in journalism from Ohio State University and a masters in public health from the University of Arizona. I grew up in Amherst, Ohio, but I have lived in Tucson, Arizona since 1981. I am a proud member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson and the Public Relations Society of America.

My Tucson Progressive blog and Facebook page feature large doses of liberal ideas, local, state, and national politics, and random bits of humor. I also blog at Blog for Arizona and the Huffington Post.